Icelanders can now each claim $400 worth of Auroracoin, the country's new digital currency

At midnight this morning in Iceland, digital currency fell from the sky. The developer behind Auroracoin, a digital currency designed exclusively for Iceland, has made $125 million worth of coins redeemable by Iceland's 330,000-or so citizens. That's about 31.8 Auroracoins, or roughly $380 per person, according to the price established by markets for digital currencies before the free distribution (the value has since dropped).

Icelanders can redeem the coins by logging into Facebook through a gateway and providing their Icelandic ID number, or by sending an SMS which can be matched with their national ID. So far more than 1 percent of coins have been claimed, according to the Auroracoin Twitter account, but the site itself is unavailable, perhaps due to high traffic.